Saturday, August 8, 2015

Green Jelly Show, Sept. 6th, 2014

Saturday afternoon I'm at my desk drinking coffee and the phone rings. It's Tommy Rocker drummer and producer and long time member of the ADPB. The night before escorting the infamous Bill Manspeaker to his hotel room Bill turns to Tommy and inquires about the ADPB. He's decided he wants a piper.

You may not know who Bill is, you may never have seen the spectacle that is his punk rock band Green Jelly, which is unfortunate because it stands beyond description. Part comedy act, part alternative adult puppet show, part rock spectacle. It was started by Bill in 1981 with the idea of naming a punk group after the most hated school lunch room desert imaginable. When it became clear that Bills motley crew of friends where sub par musicians it become the perfect name for the self proclaimed worst damn band in the land.

But jokes aside it grew to become a force in punk rock. Releasing albums and singles that hit the charts and where featured in movies like Dumb and Dumber. They made the music they wanted to make and they made it the way they wanted to make it. Failure was not a problem, it was the only way forward. Marcus Aurelius would be proud.

I came out Saturday night and I played Green Jelly on stage with the accompaniment of Tommy Rocker on Drums. I became for a moment a very small element in the constantly growing madness that is the Green Jelly stage show. A lot of pipers would never have shown up in the first place and when Bill's only guidance was to just play along with the band, whatever you want, the rest would have turned tail. But I didn't. I guess I joined the madness along time ago.

No comments:

Post a Comment